A commenter has accused LROD of jumping the shark with these new rejected story postings. Maybe it's true.On Feb 8, 2008, 11:28 AM, in response to Or Would You Publish This Sad Story?, jimbolaya said... "If I am a shark, I fear this blog has begun jumping me. Hasn't anybody gotten an idiotic rejection lately? My favorite of late was a form rejection with a hand-written note: 'We liked your essay, but it's not right for our apocalypse issue.' Then Puerto del Sol kept my novel excerpt for fourteen months before informing me that I'd submitted outside the reading period (by a matter of weeks, I might add) and invited me to resubmit."
I'm not sure what I think of it. The whole thing just kind of developed. But that's what good about writers; we know how to revise (and revise, and revise). So, we can always turn back if need be. I don't know: what would Fonzie do? What do the blog mice say?
11 comments:
Eeeek.
I'll take that as a yes.
I think I'll stay out of the feeding frenzy on this one... but can I at least be Pinky Tuscadaro?
(God, how I loved the way she snapped her fingers and then slapped her thigh. Or am I remembering incorrectly?)
QTpie
It's a strange turning point in publishing, I think.
How it's always worked is that writers send manuscripts to magazines in hope of publication so that the world can read their stories.
Today, the only magazines that print stories are expensive school-sponsored "journals" that nobody reads. We send them our stories anyway.
So now we have these blog things where we can print our good-but-massively-rejected stories, so the world can see just what the journals are rejecting.
I don't think a blog can jump the shark. It's an ever-evolving thing...
I agree with rmellis above. Maybe you can't jump the shark per se. However, you can go too far in one direction or another. I think you should veer back toward posting rejections and forget the whole story corner thing. But that's just my thought on the matter. Some people posted that they like the new feature and feel like it adds dimension to your blog. You can't please everyone (or anyone, really), so you should just do what you want.
I've been reading LROD for the last month. First let me say that I find the site uplifitng (true). It feels good to poke a little fun at the other guys while licking rejection wounds. This site takes the sting out just a little. Thank you.
But, I have to agree with anonymous. The story corner doesn't 'add dimension' to your blog. One writer's opinion. I won't stop reading if it's continued (and who knows, maybe it will catch my fancy down the line)but I probably won't read those entries.
Yikes. That sounded very un-supportive, didn't it? Not my intention.
If the blog is called LROD then actual rejections should dominate, yes. But well-rejected stories are good dishes, too. Like the occasional dessert. Same goes for writers who have to reject editors and publishers when their story/book is accepted elsewhere.
I pretty much hate the literary journals because I think they don't publish good stuff. So I doubt they will be the ones to publish "the next Hemingway", whatever that means, but I think that if there is one out there, LROD might have more of a chance to publish their well-rejected story than the Bigleague University Review will have it in the next ish. Unless the next Hemingway is an English prof somewhere...
So I guess I'd like to see more of the stories. I like to see what's being rejected, and I like the chance to discuss "why".
The first story was so strange, a shocker. There was nothing technically WRONG with it, but it was like nothing I've read in a journal, like, ever. It was like the stories in the old Perrine short story coursebook. I think one commentator said that it belonged to a different generation. But if stories like that are popular at least with a segment of people, I like that you are giving that segment a voice.
With all the ways agents reject us and worse all the agents who don't bother replying with a rejection anymore (we are to simply "assume" we are rejected), I'd find humour in some clever writer who uses a pseudonym to send out queries of the most shallow, stupid novel, just absolute rubbish, and see which agents bite - and then show us what those agents say when they're squiggling on the hook and asking for partials/fulls on that junk. Call It "Poor Literary Judgment On Display" Corner or something like that.
I wonder if LROD could move fully into the publishing realm. What a great schtick to publish rejected writers! Reminds me of early McSweeney's. Maybe a companion publishing blog?
Which brings up a question my workshop has been wrestling with: If a story is put up on a public blog doesn't it mean it is therefore published?
One aspiring writer/ex-publishing employee (has she learned nothing?) said that if the blog is open to public the piece is considered published and would have even less chance getting into print, but if one needs to have a password to access the material it is technically unpublished.
And I second anonymous' "Poor Literary Judgment On Display.'
Hilarious.
This is to the Anon of three comments ago:
Are you referring to Perrine's Story and Structure?
People can check out the stories in that text on Amazon.
You're saying that that sort of fiction is absent from literary journals today.
What a shame.
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